SMART START

WHAT IS SMART START? Children learn new concepts most easily when it is done through their particular LEARNING STYLE. There are several learning styles but the ones we find most useful to work with are the following: PHYSICAL • AUDITORY • VISUAL • HANDS-ON. Children learn FRENCH and SPANISH through song and dance, math skills with hoops and scarves, nature concepts by painting and puppetry, animals, colors, numbers and all the other wonders that children's little brains are hungry to learn. We teach concepts that children will need in school through play and games. For example, children need to get high and low, small and large, wide and narrow to truly understand these concepts. They need to act out simple “Three Little Monkeys” to discover three minus one equals two. leave comment here

by Madeleine Kando, M.Ed. Children start life with the potential to absorb information and learn skills of many different kinds: they can learn how to dance, talk, think, build things, play music, act (pretend) and much more. In school, however, the emphasis is on ‘academics’, the three ‘R’s”. But we forget that children are multi-faceted in their ability and desire to learn. Even though schools will not admit this, learning does not even have to involve language. A child might tell you an endless story about what happened to them that day, but others would rather move and show you with gestures. Yet another child will draw a picture and still others will build something with a lego set to express their experience. Unfortunately, after a child enters school a lot of that rich caleidoscope is parked in the basement. Only language (writing and reading) and counting matters. I wonder how many children are left behind because they just happen to be weak in ‘verbal intelligence’? But wh...

Children trying to add 2 and 2 in our SMARTSTART class. 2 and 2 equals... 4!! MULTIPLICATION FOR TODDLERS You could also teach multiplication with 2 hoops and 8 stuffed animal bunnies Place 1 bunny in each hoop. "Lonely little bunnies, what shall we do? Join them together so that there are TWO". Place 2 bunnies in 2 hoops. "TWO little bunnies, looking for two more..Put them together and that makes... FOUR!" Place 4 bunnies in 2 hoops. "FOUR little bunnies, don’t let them wait.. join them together and that makes ...EIGHT!" You could go on to 16, 32 etc. if you are willing to raid the toy store for stuffed animals.

Pre-Ballet Demonstration at The Children's Arts Corner Mexican Dance etc. Lerning Spanish at The Children's Arts Corner A sample toddler ballet class at The Children's Arts Corner Pre-Ballet demonstration

by Madeleine Kando We like to think that children are miniature adults, unfinished copies that will turn out to become like us. Children know better: they know that grown-ups are a breed apart and other than that they are a lot bigger, they could be from Mars for all they care. The biggest challenge for them is trying to figure out the rules of society. The problem starts out right away, as soon as they are able to see a face. Their parents expect them to smile and show how cute they are and they soon learn that it’s their ticket to get what they want. Children are so into themselves, they really don’t have a lot of time to follow the rules. They possess a blissful unselfconsciousness that allows them to sing at the top of their lungs in the supermarket, makes them run into people left and right and makes them show up undressed in front of mom’s dinner guests.. all that is perfectly acceptable from the perspective of a child. They don’t understand things verbally. It mistyfies me to ...

I have a confession to make. I have multiple personalities. It is the fate of many people like me who grow up bilingual or multilingual. But you know what? I like being French one day, Dutch the next and American the rest of the time. I find myself being able to put on many different attires. Even though I am not native French, I moved to Paris when I was four years old and that almost makes me a native speaker of this beautiful language. It makes me able to watch French movies without subtitles, read the best literature in the world in it’s original form and dooms me to speak all other languages with a French accent, which people sometimes find ‘charming’ and other times ‘annoying’. Since all one’s memories are closely intertwined with the language one speaks, when I put on my French attire I immediately am transported to the world of my childhood, when I used to walk home from the bakery with a still warm baguette under my arm, and the unique smell of the Parisian streets in my nose....

RJ LE PILOTE Par Natalie Han Mai 29, 2009 RJ aime voler son avion. Il fait des spirales et plonge dans le ciel. Mais RJ n’est pas humain. Non, RJ est un raton laveur ! Un jour, RJ pilote son avion quand un oiseau saisit une des ailes. « Vas-t’en, oiseau stupide ! » dit RJ. Mais quand l’oiseau lache l’aile, l’avion plonge et s’écrase dans un arbre. « Oh non ! » RJ pleure. RJ sort de la cabine. Il regarde en bas. C’est loing la terre! Mais RJ est un bon grimpeur. Il descend de l’arbre. « Comment je vais descendre mon avion de l’arbre? » pense RJ. Et savez-vous ce qu’il fait quand il arrive à la maison ? Il téléphone un service de grue. La Fin